Acquisition News & Articles

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Movable Type's future lies in Japan. Today it was announced that Six Apart KK (SAKK), a subsidiary of SAY Media, has been acquired by a Japanese IT company called Infocom. As of February 1, 2011 SAKK will assume responsibility for the worldwide Movable Type business, as well as the Six Apart brand. 

After a failed attempt to go public, EPiServer's (news, site) future possible routes included either trying the IPO again or selling to someone. They chose the latter. The buyer is IK Investment Partners, a European private equity firm, with a surprising business focus.

Google's already done so much with its search engine, its app store, its controversial--but popular--social features. Why not throw printing in the mix? Still in its early stages, Google Cloud Print eases the process of printing from mobile devices like an iPad. 

Open Text (news, site) said it’s a done deal. The planned acquisition of all of the issued and outstanding shares of Vignette (worth approximately US$ 321 million) has been completed late yesterday following a shareholders’ meeting where the voting and approval took place.

While Vignette (news, site) is busy nostalgizing, Open Text says it’s working on the strategic aspects of what may come next. Let’s not forget that Open Text already has a WCM-centric group called Open Text Web Solutions. Offering an even broader range of (quite similar) products is going to take some brain activity. Then again, this would not be the first quilting exercise for Open Text.

In the meantime, there’s still some Vignette cash to recognize on OTEX’s balance sheet.

According to the “big brother,” support will continue for Vignette's products and (the relatively quickly decreasing) installed base (bringing in the licensing revenue). The same applies to existing Web Solutions products and customers. No comment has been made in regards to new(er) Vignette products.

There is a talk about a “combined product,” but no details on what it will be, except for providing a supersized meal of a “full set of feature options, from… fast-to-deploy web publishing application, to… enterprise-class e-business platform for large-scale deployments.”

Vignette's social media, DAM and personalized content seem to be some of the most palatable notes in this content management connoisseur combo. Open Text also expressed intent to potentially leverage some of Vignette’s components in its ECM Suite.

More details on the product strategy and the product roadmap are not likely to be announced earlier than October, when Open Text’s annual conference -- Content World 2009 – will take place.

Restructuring is expected. We should know more about the range of that initiative around the end of August.

Today, Open Text (news, site) announced yet another acquisition. Not as material as some of the previous ones, this one falls in a different category -- a quest for "sizzling technology."

This time around, it's the Toronto-based Vizible Corporation, a maker of 3D technology and digital media interface solutions.

We talked to Scott Bowen, president of Open Text's Digital Media Group, to get the scoop on this deal.

Swedish CMS provider EPiServer decided to grab a Web agency called Dropit. While some other Web Content Management vendors are shedding extra weight (i.e. agencies), EPiServer does the exact opposite. Why?

Editor's Note: After the news went out, we've heard from EPiServer with clarification on the acquisition. The product section and the actual products from Dropit were acquired, but not any consulting resources and not the entire Dropit organization, which will remain intact and maintain their focus of developing Web sites for their customers.